All of You

1. Delia

One

Delia

S taring out the window, I watch vines stretch up the side of barns and poles, curling and reaching for the clear blue sky. Their tendrils dancing in the wind, appear as though they are trying to grasp at something—anything. The corner of my mouth lifts slightly. I feel you vines, I feel you.

I often feel as though I am flailing wildly, desperate to catch hold of anything within reach. Something to ground me. Roots . Not that it matters. Nor is it a useful feeling to have. My life is a perpetual ball of uncertainty.

Even now, off to another town, another new school. Another ‘fresh start’ as mom refers to it. Honestly, I’m so over ‘fresh starts’. Mom doesn’t remember what being in high school is like. She clearly doesn’t remember being a teenager. Then again, maybe this was exactly how she grew up? I have no idea and I’m pretty sure I never will. She doesn’t talk about growing up. I don’t get those typical ‘ when I was your age…’ talks. I’m not even certain she ever was under twenty.

When I was younger, I sometimes imagined her just appearing at the edge of a tree line in a magic forest as a full-grown woman. I can’t even picture her as a kid. It’s weird. But I guess not that out of the ordinary. Most kids say they can’t fathom their parents as kids, but the difference is, they have pictures to prove they were. To guide their imagination. Or family members relay old stories about them.

I have none of that.

No family.

No siblings.

No dad.

No grandparents or aunts or uncles.

No old family friends.

My mom is a nomad and besides knowing that to get pregnant, there needs to be semen involved to fertilize an egg, I could swear my mom just spontaneously made me on a whim in the back of our camper just to be less lonely.

In fact, I like that idea better than knowing I have a father out there, maybe wondering if I exist, or maybe not. It’s kind of depressing.

If I let myself believe in a father, I have to also allow myself to be curious about said father and wonder about him and if he has a family, and if so, does that mean I’m part of a family that didn’t want me? Or are they sad and desperate to find and include me? It’s easier to remind myself that there is no one else. Just me and Mom. Me and the gypsy known as Clover.

The wind rips through the open window sending my hair flying in all directions. I reach up with both hands to tame it—cursing under my breath.

“Don’t fight it!” Mom’s voice shouts over the wind and blaring radio. “Be wild, babe.”

I side-eye her, her own dark blonde hair whipping around her face while simultaneously being sucked out the window, head bobbing to the music—something from the sixties—an easy smile on her face.

Sometimes just looking at her annoys me for no good reason, and sometimes looking at her sets my soul at ease. Today it is not the latter. I roll my eyes and continue my plight of taming my mane while rolling my window up halfway. She shakes my shoulder.

“So serious, Delia. Loosen up, Kid.”

“How much longer?” I ask, ignoring her observation.

She shrugs and I huff.

Unbuckling—no, my mom doesn’t care if I unbuckle while driving—I wobble into the back of the van until I can curl up on the bed alone, stare out the back windows, and watch the last remnants of the town I finally adjusted to, disappear into empty country road lined by trees and fields and a whole lot of nothing. We’re on a thin black ribbon of asphalt that bisects a whole lot of greenery and little else.

When I wake, I’m disoriented and groggy—feeling slick from the humidity and sleep. I blink my eyes open and stretch my body with a shudder that holds tension like a string pulled so tight that it makes a musical sound when you pluck it. Grinding the heels of my palms into my eyes I try to snap out of it.

It’s silent. Too silent.

Mom makes noise. Her actual person is somehow noisy. Always humming or singing, clacking pots or pans around, opening or closing things. I don’t know—she’s just loud . Laughing, talking, hell, whispering—she’s loud—or as she says, jolly . I sit up. Crack my neck. Glance around.

We’re parked—the van door is closed. As are all the windows. Usually, mom will leave something open, especially if I’m inside sleeping. A ripple of panic charges through me. This isn’t abnormal, Delia, this happens plenty. She’s probably right outside. Or peeing in the woods or whatever. I’d bet every modicum of blind faith on the fact that she’s simply wandering through nature right now. Still, the panic unsettles me. If I lose mom, I lose everything. Everyone.

I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and push up. It feels good to stretch. I slide open the van door and poke my head out. Fanned-out ferns stretch out around me. I feel a rush of wildness and color. A bunchy burst of purple flowers growing next to a copse of trees, a sort of a vine that doesn’t lie flat. Mom’s camping chair is set up in a little grass patch to the left. We’re basically parked on the edge of a field—all I can imagine is ticks galore—with no buildings anywhere.

I feel the warmth of the sunbeams at this time of day. They shine on me just as it does on the wilderness surrounding me. The leaves turn and the breeze coming in feels like the whole world is a pet dog that is breathing on me.

I’d kill for a dog. Or any pet really.

There’s nothing but natural silence; the wind, leaves rustling, peepers, crickets and bird chirps. I stare out at the tree line behind the hip-deep grass and wildflower field.

Nothing.

And then, something.

Mom comes skipping out of the forest, into the field. If a person can mimic an animal, embody one, my mother is a baby deer. She frolics through the grass, broad smile, playful gate—not a care in the world. Her blonde hair floats out behind her. The sunshine creates a halo around the crown of her head. Tan arms swing blithely, her flowy, bohemian elastic-waisted skirt—because, she says if it doesn’t have an elastic waist, is it even worth wearing—billows out around her as she moves. She’s ethereal. I need to look that word up, but people call her that all the time, or hippie, or gypsy.

I don’t know what that makes them but people seem to think my mom is pretty neat. Free and wild and alive. You can see it in their eyes—the brief jealousy that she lives life on her terms. But I think they’re all idiots—it’s the parts you don’t see that matter in life.

Not having a home. Not having family or friends. Not knowing where your money will come from or what we will be eating that week or how to fix the damn van if it breaks down.

There’s a lot of unglamourous parts to our lives but people only see the dream of freedom and not being tied down when they look at her. She’s infectious. Always smiling. Always funny. Upbeat with stories to tell and adventures to share. And in a way, she is all those things.

She’s also sad and lonely and broke. But those parts of her quietly exist—you have to dig deep to notice them.

And she doesn’t let anyone dig deep.

“We’re almost there, sleepyhead,” she says as she approaches. “Think we’ll stay here tonight so we can get into town in the morning and explore.” She runs her hands through my long locks on her way past me.

“Where’d you go?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Just out to explore. ”

I sink into her camping chair, still tired. “Check for ticks,” I call out as she leans into the van and pulls out some food.

“Worry wart,” she calls back.

“Mom! Ticks are bad.”

“Ticks are nature.”

I roll my eyes so hard I’m sure they get lost in the back of my head. “Ticks are Lyme disease and this year is supposed to be a really bad tick year.”

“They say that every year Delia.”

She hands me a sleeve of saltines. “I promise I will check myself for ticks.” She holds her pinky finger out to me. I ignore it and rip into the plastic sleeve of crackers.

“This dinner?” I ask with my mouth full.

She sinks to the ground near me, cross-legged. “Why?”

“They’re just crackers. Do we have any soup left? Something to go with them?”

“I forgot how hungry teenagers are. I think there’s still some bananas left.”

I see an opportunity for information and toss out a probe. “Were you a bottomless pit as a teen?”

She grins up through her lashes at me. “I’ve always had a healthy appetite.”

Great. Nothing. Generic. “Were you ever a teenager at all?”

Now it’s her turn to roll her eyes at me. “What a ridiculous question.” She leans forward and starts jabbing at my legs, her movements meant to mimic a robot.

“I. am. Not. Human. I am robot mom.” She says in a mechanical robot staccato. I swat her jabs away playfully but maintain my best unimpressed face.

“What’s this town like?” I ask.

Her eyes sparkle with a hint of nostalgia which strikes me as odd. We never visit the same place twice. “It has this darling little main drag, old-fashioned looking buildings with the cutest shops and cafes you’ve ever seen. Kind people, brick sidewalks, ice cream stands, and an old-fashioned movie theater with a big marquee. You will love it.”

I take a moment to think it over. Mom’s good at selling places. Most of the time her version of the place and the reality of them are slightly off. A ‘darling’ little main drag probably means nothing has been updated in years. It might mean it was once a vibrant small town center that has suffered weather and wear and vacancies over the years. But, I choose to maintain hope that it’s at least sixty percent as great as she says. “And I read that the high school is small but has a swim team and a pool on campus!”

This piques my attention. I live for swimming. I love the water. There is something about being in water—any water; ocean, lake, pool, stream—whatever. It calms my soul. I try to join the swim team wherever I am—it’s kinda my one constant besides never having a constant—outside of my mother’s physical presence. I slap a mosquito on my thigh and then flick it off. A little splotch of red is left on my skin.

“I don’t know why you do that. You don’t have to kill them, just shoo them away.” She frowns.

“Because I don’t like bug bites. You wouldn’t understand, they never seem to bite you.”

“You keep them away from me with your sweet blood,” she says.

“You always say that, but I always seem to suffer for that sweet blood,” I laugh.

She pops up to her feet and darts into the van again returning with two bananas, one outstretched to me. I take it from her because I’m still hungry, but what I really want is half a pizza and a milkshake, or maybe bacon, Gouda cheese fries. A big plate of them. If I try hard enough, I can almost taste them.

She puts on some music, and I stuff a banana in my mouth.

In the night, which seems to be holding its breath, I hear critters and birds, their sounds like bracelets shifting or tiny bells in the distance, the beginnings of the night life because they feel the sun slinking away. I turn around to face the air coming through the small van window by my pillow, it is so balmy as I breathe it in, so perfect, that I take it as a sign that it’s okay to exist just as I am, which is a rare feeling for me to have.

“I want to be like a forest,” Mom whispers as I’m trying to fall asleep.

“Mom,” I groan.

She reaches out and squeezes my foot. “What? I do.”

Okay, I’ll bite. “Why?” I ask, voice gravelly from disuse.

“Because it’s perfect.” She states. “There is nothing not allowed to grow inside a forest. Anything that wants to be is allowed and has a job—serves a purpose if you will.”

“Okay.” I draw the word out.

She jabs my foot. “I’m not done. And everything is accepted because there is no concept of who deserves to be in a place or have more or less. There are only lives to be lived. Wildness that envelopes everything within it and has deep roots in the soil.”

I say nothing. My mother is so odd.

This feels like the time she told me that ‘everything is always transforming and remaking itself and so are you’ when I was pissed off about leaving yet another school where I had just made friends. She squeezes my sock-clad foot one more time for good measure and rolls to her side, facing away from me. I let my eyelids or as my mom calls them, eye curtains, swing shut until there is nothing but black to see.